2017 IV Programme Participants

IV Fellows

Ursula Bergenthal (Switzerland) is editor-in-chief at Diogenes. Previously, she worked at Heyne and at btb/ Random House Germany, first as editor, then as editor-in-chief. Based in Zurich, Diogenes is one of Europe’s largest independent literary publishers, home to international bestselling authors such as Ian McEwan, Donna Leon, Martin Suter, Paulo Coelho, John Irving, Benedict Wells, Martin Walker, George Watsky, Bernhard Schlink and Patrick Süskind. Its list also includes a large collection of classics, art and cartoon titles, as well as children’s books.

Martin Breitfeld(Germany) started his professional life as a lecturer at Université de Montréal before turning to publishing. He worked at C. H. BECK and HERDER and joined KIEPENHEUER & WITSCH (KIWI) in 2008 as a senior editor for both fiction and nonfiction. His German authors include Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier (Panama Papers), Sacha Batthyany (A Crime in the family) and Crime award of the year winner Tom Hillenbrand (Drone Country), and his international authors Mark Frost (The secret life of Twin Peaks) and Shilpi Somaya Gowda (Secret Daughter). He is teaching at Bonn University.

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Jean-Marie Jot (Canada)has worked as a bookseller while free-lancing as a translator and an editor for both Leméacéditeur and Les Allusifs in Montreal, a position he now occupies full-time. He focuses on Canadian fiction in English, which he helps bring to francophone readers through translation.

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Regina Kammerer (Germany) is the publisher of btb & Luchterhand (part of Random House Germany).She studied German, Politics and Social Sciences in Heidelberg and Munich and is also a graduate of The German School of Journalism in Munich. She lives in Munich.

Lena Luczak (Germany) has studied Literature and Cultural studies in Berlin and Paris. Since 2009 she is editor in the publishing house Klaus Wagenbach in Berlin which is independent for over fifty years now and has a rich backlist with over 800 titles on stock. Her main focus is contemporary and classic literary fiction from UK, USA, Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands and political and historical non-fiction by German, English and French authors. She has participated in different visitors programmes, for example in Slovenia and Amsterdam.

Fiona McCrae(USA) has been publisher of Graywolf Press since 1994. During her tenure, the Press has expanded its lists of poetry, literary nonfiction and criticism, fiction, and works in translation. Recent authors who have enjoyed notable successes include Jeffery Renard Allen, Eula Biss, Leslie Jamison, Per Petterson, Claudia Rankine, Vijay Seshadri, and Tracy K. Smith. Graywolf won the AWP Best Small Press of the Year Award in 2015. McCrae serves on the boards of Fence and the National Book Foundation, and is a recipient of the Poets & Writers Editor’s Award.

Charlotte Mursell (UK)is an Editor at HQ, HarperCollins Publishers, previously working for Harlequin UK. She joined the team in 2013 and acquires commercial fiction and nonfiction across a wide range of genres for both HQ and HQ Digital. Recently, she published the international bestseller The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, which has sold in 32 territories and the number one digital bestseller A Year of Being Single by Fiona Collins.

​Rakesh Satyal (USA)began his career at what was formerly the Doubleday Broadway division of Random House, then spent five years at HarperCollins. In his previous editorial positions, he worked with an array of distinguished authors, including Clive Barker, Paulo Coelho, Armistead Maupin, Paul Rudnick, Miranda Seymour and Terry Castle.Satyal has been on the advisory committee for the annual PEN World Voices Festival and has taught in the publishing program at New York University. He also sits on the Board of Directors for Lambda Literary. He is a graduate of Princeton University, where he studied comparative literature.

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Anne Stadler (Germany) is Editorial Director Non-Fiction at Piper Verlag. Previously she worked as an Editor for Non-Fiction at Campus Verlag and Luebbe and joined Piper as Editorial Director in 2012, where her authors among others are Hans Küng, Jon Krakauer, Shirin Ebadi, Philip Norman, Remo Largo and Jan Becker.

​After a master’s degree in Publishing and work experience in Germany, Francesca Varotto (Italy)moved to Venice to Marsilio Editori (part of RCS group – now Mondadori, an independent publishing house), where she is the editorial director of foreign fiction, in charge of a list of about 25 translated titles a year of literary, upmarket and crime fiction, as well as of narrative non-fiction.

Distinguished Guests

Jennie Dorny (France) has been working in French publishing, in foreign rights, for over thirty years. She began her career with Editions Belfond in 1983, then worked for Editions Odile Jacob, and joined Editions du Seuil in 2000. Since 2012, she has been giving Master Classes on foreign rights at the Seagull School of Publishing in Calcutta (India) and at the University of Villetaneuse (Paris). She has published three novels in French and is currently finishing a science-fiction novel in English.

Jennie Dorny's participation was made possible in partnership with the Consulate General of France in Toronto.

(c) Charlotte Knee

James Gill(UK) is a founding partner of United Agents LLP, Europe’s largest literary and talent agency. He has worked in publishing and literary representation since 1995. Jim has a passion for finding and breaking out new voices, such as James Rebanks, author of the internationally acclaimed The Shepherd’s Life. His list includes the bestselling and prize-winning novelists Justin Cartwright, Margaret Drabble, Harry Sidebottom and Joanna Trollope, and a number of acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers including Matt Lewis, Sudhir Hazareesingh and Patrick Hennessey, author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club.

​​Andrea Schulz (USA)is the editor in chief of Viking. Among the books she’s edited are At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier, The Big Burn and Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by National Book Award winner Timothy Egan, The Trespasser by Tana French, and Animals Make Us Human and The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin, as well as titles by Alexander Chee, Rana Dasgupta, Ursula K. Le Guin, Elinor Lipman, Tom Rachman, and Paul Theroux. She began her career as a bookseller.

​Susanna Wadeson(UK) joined Transworld in 2003, initially to run the Eden Project Books imprint and commission books with an environmental theme. She now commissions general nonfiction and literary fiction for Bantam Press and Doubleday, publishing authors such as Professor Richard Dawkins, Professor Stephen Hawking, Edward Stourton and Rachel Joyce. She was previously at ITV, heading up the book publishing arm of their licensing division, and before that, Editorial Director at Boxtree Books, responsible for the illustrated hardback division. She began her career at Macmillan London working on fiction, non-fiction and humour titles.

(c) Hannifan Sakai

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Danny Yanez(USA) is the director of adult scouting at Franklin & Siegal Associates, a New York-based international scouting agency with clients in 18 countries around the world. Danny began his career at the University of Chicago Press, the publishing arm of his alma mater, where he worked in the editorial, contracts, and sub-rights departments. He moved to New York in 2007 to work with the publishing director of Alfred A. Knopf, and joined the editorial team of Vintage/Anchor a year later. He’s been a scout since 2012 and currently lives in Brooklyn.

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Jeremy Trevathan (UK) , Publisher, is responsible for the shape, direction and profitability of the adult publishing lists at Pan Macmillan in the UK. This includes Macmillan, Pan, Picador, Mantle, Sidgwick& Jackson, Boxtree, Bello and the recently launched Bluebird. His authors have included bestsellers including Ken Follett, Jeffrey Archer, Max Hastings, James Herbert, Wilbur Smith, Peter Hamilton, China Mieville and Roy Jenkins to name a few. He began his career working in the Production Departments of Oxford University Press and Penguin Books, before transferring to the Subsidiary Rights Department at Penguin. Stints at Time-Life Books and Reader’s Digest Books in editorial roles preceded his arrival at Pan Macmillan in the mid-1990s as Subsidiary Rights Director. In 2000 he became Publisher of Macmillan.

Canadian Delegates

As President and Publisher, Susanne Alexander (Canada) oversees the title acquisition, sales and marketing programs of Goose Lane Editions. Founded in 1954, this ambitious little publishing house releases more than 25 books each year in cloth, paper and eBook editions. Its publishing program embraces a wide array of subject matter for the perceptive adult reader. Novels. Stories. Poetry. Biographies. History. Travel. Art. Pop culture. Global politics. Science and society.

(c) Trayton Turner

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Kelsey Attard (Canada) is the managing editor of Freehand Books, a literary publisher in Calgary. She has a Master of Publishing degree and is on the board of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.

(c) Lief Norman

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Todd Besant(Canada) over 25 years as a book publisher, writer, author, editor, and bookseller.He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is the executive editor of ARP Books. From 2001 to 2009 he was the managing editor of Turnstone Press.Todd is an advocate for publishers and writers, and sat on a number of book industry boards, serving as the Chairperson (and Treasurer) of the Literary Press Group, the founding Treasurer of LitDistCo, and the Vice-president of the Association of Canadian Publishers. His fiction has been published in sub Terrain, Contemporary Verse 2, Prairie Fire, Front & Centre, and Zygote.

​Whitney Moran (Canada) is the senior editor with Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press, based in Halifax Nova Scotia, the largest English-language publisher east of Toronto, and has worked with celebrated authors like Sheree Fitch, Carol Bruneau, Julie Lawson, and Jan Coates. She holds an MA in English Literatures from Wilfrid Laurier University and an Honours BA from Mount Allison. A former journalist with a passion for craft beer, Whitney’s first book, East Coast Crafted: The Essential Guide to the Beers, Breweries, and Brewpubsof Atlantic Canada will be published in October 2017. She lives near Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia.

(c) Penny Smoke

A two-time winner of the Libris Award for his “outstanding contribution to Canadian publishing,” Bruce Walsh(Canada) launched University of Regina Press in June 2013 as director and publisher. It has gone on to publish six national bestsellers and many award winning books. A Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation Mentor, he is the recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for work on the environment, freedom of expression, and advancement of culture.